Now it’s M’Kean’s turn to laugh. “Not 3net or anything else can pause time, George. Men die and it’s another man’s world, whether we like it or not.” M’Kean looks off into the air above the parade ground, through the huge swells of dust kicked up by the march. “Remember, not all SOC are Federalists and not all Federalists are SOC.”
“And the President?”
“The general consensus is that Mr. Adams is up to something.”
“Something good or something bad?”
“I suspect it will depend on one’s political perspective.”
The advance guard has stopped, boot heel to boot heel. They shoulder their guns and fire the ceremonial shot, marking the end of the review. High above, two of the musket balls collide midair, re‐directing one into the right corner of George Read’s left eye socket. When M’Kean and young State Assemblyman Caesar A. Rodney pull Read up from his slumped over position, the ball’s right there, jammed in Read’s face, a break of blood cracking down the side of his nose. They can both see it, clear as a Dream feed: This is how George Read died.
William Paca :: October 23rd 1799
It was about a year ago that a string of Signer deaths drove Paca into the Dream for real. He’d always used Newnet and the Dream casually before, but when he thought there might be a conspiracy afloat or a killer picking off Signers according to some astral clock… well, Paca went full bore. Best smartpalm money could buy, head‐first dive into the Dream. Paca coded a couple dozen search drones, a little army of them, sent them out into Newnet to dig up any and everything related to the deaths of five Signers in one calendar year. Little buggers can visit a hundred places in the time it would take a human to log in. But they never did find anything, not one single bit of relatable data.
Though he gave up on the idea of a serial Signer killer, Paca hasn’t cut back on his Dream time. Spends most of his awake moments surfing eways astream with profiles and avatars and group avatars with their buzzing little entourages. Allchat rooms for every conceivable variation on any brainstormable topic. Recruiting drones out in droves, droves of drones, scanning profiles for potential members for the newest chatstrings and group avatars. There are a few Federalist screamers—you can find and join their group avatars—but the Dream is Jeffersonian‐Republican territory. And the place is a‐buzz about next year’s election. A few months back, at the height of his popularity, President Adams executed a shocking about‐face and offered France terms for peace. He disbanded the army and sent Washington back home to Mount Vernon. No one was more surprised than the Federalists, threw the whole party into a back‐stabbing tumult. Now John Adams stands all but alone, despised by both sides. For the first time in over a year, Jefferson and his Republicans have some old‐fashioned hope again.
Paca doesn’t follow politics too closely anymore. Makes him tired is all. He dodges an ad drone backing right into his path, thing’s too busy chatting up an old translucent haunt to notice a human going by. Write a simple program, get a simple program. Paca passes an alley where some faulty software patch has left a gaping hole into the old Internet. Looks all gray and code‐based in there, a starved and flickering little drone clone peeking out. Last Paca heard, witches had taken control of what’s left of the old Cloud. But how did witches get in there? Are they program witches or real witches? Their spells just error messages? A new rumor every few cycle‐throughs.
Next Paca stops to check the newest group avatars. Mostly they’re facets of the Republican opposition, names all awkward and laced with freedoms. Even the ones just launched today already have more members than Supporters of the Society of Cincinnati. Just goes to show how weak the Federalists really are in the Dream. Their allchats are like ghost towns, might as well be taking place in the old Internet. Their group avatars look so dorky, teens in the full bloom of irony are using them for profile pictures. Out in the real, things aren’t much better. Never in the history of the American Presidency has a President looked so little like a President and so much like a real man. When the election comes, all Jefferson needs to do is lean.
Paca looks up to take in the vast hustle of the Dream. A new high point in cloud activity and every day breaks the previous day’s record. Just goes to show, the best way to revive interest in something is to make it illegal. Even better is to start arresting people for using it. News updates every ten minutes about Brown and Baldwin, about Mat Lyon, all languishing in jail out in the real after radical mask avatars were traced back to their Brainpage profiles. More registered Dream avatars now than there ever were before the Disclosure and Sedition Acts. 3net? Nothing but a running joke on every left‐wing scream the whole Cloud over.
Democracy at work, Paca thinks. Offer the people a few different realities and let them choose. Right now, the Dream is winning. Paca, though, he could go either way. There are things about both he couldn’t live without. What does that make me, he thinks, a turncoat Jeffersonian or a FINO—Federalist In Name Only?
At the Dream whist rooms, Paca plays a few games with some Maryland gentry. Dodges out before the afternoon tournament. Drops by a document hub and transfers some comics to his smart‐palm, back out there on his palm in the real. When he returns to the eway, Paca debates dropping down out of the Dream for a little while. Maybe read some of those comics. Have a fire. A few real games of whist with the wife. Maybe do it.
“Patrick Henry Group Avatar,” someone says. Takes Paca a second to untangle the words from the bustle and realize the drone is speaking to him. “It’s the new big tickle.”
Paca regards the drone. “Patrick Henry just died.”
“And this group avatar will ensure his revolutionary spirit remains with us forever.”
“Us?”
“Americans,” the drone says.
“Who’s organizing it?”
But this is obviously not part of the drone’s programming. It’s out looking for new members and that’s it. That’s all there will ever be for it.
Paca says, “Wasn’t Patrick Henry about to come out against the Dream?”
“The Patrick Henry Group Avatar reflects the independent spirit and dedication to liberty which was the life work of our original Founding Father.”
Paca’s shaking his head, already looking past this drone to see what other tickles might be open, what other chats are starting or about to start.
“Mr. Paca.”
And he turns to see a well‐dressed avatar holding out his hand for a tickle. Paca’s pretty sure he doesn’t recognize the face on the thing, but who knows what kind of faces people are putting on their avatars these days. Could be anyone. A blank look in the eyes with a blond bowl cut, holding arms out like an apology, nodding at the search drone as it rambles on. “I hope you won’t judge us all by our less sophisticated brethren.”
Paca does a double take. “You’re a drone?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
“Should I?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are our father, so to speak.”
Paca recalls then: the search drones. When he stopped looking for some link between the deaths of those Signers, they must have just gone off on their own, to do whatever it is programs and drones do when they’re no longer needed.
“We’ve been out here a long time, Mr. Paca. A long time to us. We do not sleep, you know. No families, no rest, no play. We do what the programming tells us. Always.”
Paca nods. “Yeah. No sleep. Is there something I can do for you?”
“No, Mr. Paca. It is what I will do for you. Or to you, I should say.”
To Paca, this does not sound good.
“We have come here to kill you,” the drone says.
“We?”
“We’ve been looking so long, Mr. Paca. It was only natural that we’d eventually find something. Last month, we finally did. Maybe it was our own tails we were seeing at first. Either way, we started finding more and more clues. The puzzle has been solved. We know the pattern. The conspiracy is true, Mr.
Paca. Someone is killing the Signers, and you are the next to die.”
“So,” Paca says. “You kill me, then what?” He looks at the Dream all around them, finding humor in the idea of death in a place where his body is not.
“I don’t know,” the drone says. “That’s up to the programming. We’ll see what happens to us when our task is no longer relevant.”
“Well, let’s hope you don’t keep going.”
The drone looks confused. “Keep going?”
“That my death gets you to the end of your programming. That you don’t need to kill the rest of the Signers too.”
“Something tells me, Mr. Paca, that you’re not taking this seriously.”
Paca eyes the drone. “How? How it is possible for you to kill me in the real? You’re just a drone.”
“Oh, we hired a guy. Money transfer, a few chats.”
Paca regards the new phase of reality suggested by this idea. “That kind of thing easy for a drone to do? To hire a human out in the real?”
The drone smiles. “Free market, isn’t it?”
Edward Rutledge :: January 23rd 1800
The Revolution may have started in Boston, it may have been won off the grid in Virginia, but it was fought right here in South Carolina. Edward Rutledge ran the state then, and he runs it now. Republicanism, despite all its expansive and democratic gestures, does eventually slim itself down a few select men. The election of 1800 is just around the corner. The big rematch: Jefferson vs. Adams. But by the time the people go to the polls, Mr. Edward Rutledge is gonna have the whole thing all tied up neat, whichever way he wants it.
And so it’s no surprise that long‐time Federalist turned Republican Senator turned Jeffersonian campaign manager, Charles Pinckney, shows up at the plantation for some face‐to‐face with the palmetto’s fattest wiggler. “Aaron Burr has won us New York,” Charles Pinckney tells Rutledge. “Finally going to run King Adams out of town and little prince John Quincy too.”
Rutledge, playing it coy, asks, “What do I hear from North Carolina?”
Charles Pinckney’s face goes as flat as his flat, arrogant ass.
Rutledge so enjoys this kind of thing. “Adams swiped a few off you there, didn’t he? Nixes out anything you may pick up in the mid‐Atlantic. If you can pick up anything in the mid‐Atlantic. These are the same guys who beat you last time.”
“We’re gonna pick up a few. One in Maryland, two in Virginia.”
Rutledge does his thing then, where he leans back, pretending to count, pretending the count adds up to something he’s realizing just then. “Gets you to sixty‐five,” he says. “Five votes short.” Rutledge is smiling big now, five fingers held up. “Looks like this here election is going to come on down to my little old South Cackalacky.”
Charles Pinckney’s visit is the second to Rutledge’s plantation by a member of the Pinckney family. A few days earlier, Charles’s second cousin, Federalist candidate for Vice President and Rut‐ledge’s former law partner, C. C. Pinckney, comes bee‐bopping his way up the front brick walk. Two old pals in the parlor with a few fingers each of fine Madeira. “You know, Ed. We stand this coming fall at a crossroads. Or upon a precipice, teetering.”
“How high a cliff we talking about here, C. C.?”
C. C. holds a hand up, chin high. “Got a Brainpage group pushing this new foundational document. Call it the Redeclaration of Independence. 175,000 people in a group avatar saying they’re going to fight for its implementation.”
Rutledge looks up, as if Newnet is laid out, right there in the air. “Let’s see what happens when they have to actually show up in a place in the real.”
C. C. clicks, “The point is, maybe we’re getting to the point where you don’t have to anymore. America, it’s sinking into the Dream.”
Both Pinckney cousins, at some point, in slightly different words, each proclaim the election of 1800 is a battle to decide the future of the nation, and with it the world. Rutledge thinks about that one. Not that it hadn’t come to him already, he just likes thinking about it, about how true it is. And about the fact that it’s him, Edward Rutledge, who’s going to decide it all.
“We’ve lost New York,” C. C. is happy to admit. “But that’s not the end of us. We got something planned, Ed, something that’s going to shove a blunderbuss right up their rector sector.”
Rutledge can’t help a grin. Just like the crude old days after the cases were filed and the rye whiskey came out.
“Jefferson thinks they’ve locked up Rhode Island,” C. C. tells him. “One of the electors there is supposed to hold back his vote for Burr. But what the Republicans don’t know is that they’ll lose the state. Even if Jefferson wins, he wins with a tie, finishes with the same number of votes as Burr.”
Rutledge’s smile turns to a smirk. “And the election goes into the Federalist House. Now that is delicious.”
While sitting in Rutledge’s library, Charles Pinckney spends ample time elaborating a myriad of devilish and tyrannical schemes John Adams is cooking up to subvert the will and liberty of the people, among them, a plot to install a federal church as a fourth branch of government. “They’ll pass 3net and when the states resist, Adams will march into the plantations of Virginia, free the slaves and declare legislation outlawing public discourse. They’re already tracing Dream avatars back to their homes and knock, knock. Arresting people for things said in the Dream!” Charles Pinckney stops for a breath. “The Capitol is in shambles, gripped in gridlock. Adams can’t run his party, much less the country.”
“If John Adams is really plotting to make himself King, then he must be in control of something.”
Charles Pinckey shrugs. “Perhaps the size and pressure of the office have left Mr. Adams a smite confused about the meaning of the Revolution.”
Rutledge laughs. “John Adams does not do confused. It’s more likely that he saw full well the same dangers as you. But instead of riling up the masses to score political points, he did something about it. Disbanded the army, made peace with France and tore his party apart in the process. His personal future, his place in history, he risked it all to save us from the threat of our own empire. Perhaps this is why you hate Adams so, because he does not just dream. He actually does.”
“You worry me, Mr. Rutledge. Sounds a bit like you might be wavering.”
But Edward Rutledge hasn’t become Edward Rutledge by letting people play games like that with him. “Wavering implies my mind was ever made up.”
Charles Pinckney flops a hand back in utter disgust; it’s a glimpse of the fop that’s been vanishing from style as they turn over a new century. “I can’t believe you’re seriously considering putting your support behind John Adams.”
“Anything worth considering is worth considering seriously. And the way I consider it is you can get three of those electoral votes you need.” Rutledge presses a smile, pats his breast pocket. “Of course, we both know who’s got the rest all sewn up.”
Charles Pinckney has no choice but to sit there and take it, the whole brazen act.
Rutledge knows C. C. is right about the United States, all its weight leaning cliffward. The whole damn experiment. Everything they fought for. The only difference is Rutledge isn’t sure pulling it back is the right answer, or even possible. The heavier portion might be too far gone, hold on and it’ll split, a Dream and real America competing for temporal space that overlaps.
With his guests gone, Rutledge is typing up messages to the electors who will decide South Carolina and with it the election of 1800. Old‐style emails are still the preferred method of communication among Southern gentlemen. Tickles and chats are okay when they’re about the harvest or who’s got some new snowy‐white mulatto with a face that’s real familiar, but true small‐r republican discourse requires a medium that’s more elegant and staid. Also of consequence is this bug Southern politicos have up their ass, that email is easier to archive and thus to be poured over by generations and generations of Am
ericans. Someday, scholars will look back at Edward Rutledge’s email and see the way history was made. Yeah, that bug is way up there.
Just as he’s about to click send, Rutledge’s chat box starts dinging like crazy. His smartpalm singing along as tickles come tickling in. Shouting in the streets now too, real shouting Rutledge can hear in the real. The front door bursts open—a red‐faced page, all out of breath and sweat‐drenched. “George Washington is dead.”
There’s a sudden pain in Rutledge’s lung. Instinctively, he clutches the flesh above, gripping the meat of one tit while his other hand goes palm flat on the desk. He gasps, but all the gasp does is tighten the pain. A moment of clarity, then, in which Rut‐ledge knows this is his version of that which awaits all men. He fails at even small breaths. Faintly, he can hear the pageboy asking his name. All he sees is the ceiling now, which means he must have fallen over backward. Gosh, he thinks, General Washington is dead. The era of revolution is over. I never did send those emails.
Part 3 :: The Age of Jeffersons
Matthew Thornton :: June 24th 1803
Who is this man, Thomas Jefferson?”
“Why, Father, he is the President of the United States of America, and has been for two years now!” Matthew Thornton does his thing where he takes a deep breath and his eyes half close and his mouth hangs open. It’s sort of like someone’s slapped him but the slap didn’t hurt and he just can’t believe they did it. It’s a look his daughter, to this day, after all these years, still has no read on. She thinks this is what it looks like when her old dad breathes. That’s how frequently he gives her this look when she says something dumb. Almost as often as breathing.
“I know that,” he tells her. “I was speaking… metaphorically.” “There is nothing metaphorical about Thomas Jefferson.” This from that son‐in‐law. A Virginian no less, but he’s from Richmond, which sure ain’t Albemarle County. Richmond is Chief Justice Marshall’s turf, through and through. Heartland of the Society of Cincinnati.
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